Conduct based on "honour" within some ethnic minority groups that compromises the safety of others has no place in English law, a senior judge said yesterday.

In what is believed to be the first court case concerning care proceedings for children based on "honour" crimes, Lord Justice Wall said such acts should be re-branded "sordid, criminal behaviour".

The judge made the comments in a case where a man from the Pakistani Pathan community appealed against his children being placed in care with a white, non-Muslim family. The children were placed with long-term foster carers after their mother had applied white spirit to their clothes and set fire to the family house.

The mother, 32, is serving a five-year prison sentence for arson. Her brother had entered into an arranged marriage with a woman in Pakistan who had come to England in 2003 pregnant with her first child. The child was taken to hospital aged 27 months suffering from multiple injuries, including evidence of sexual abuse.

The mother of the murdered infant then fled the home with the assistance of social services, having also suffered systematic beatings. Her flight is thought to have prompted the mother of the children in the care proceedings - a girl aged 11 and boys of nine and five - to set the house on fire in an attempt to incriminate her sister-in-law, who was regarded as a "problem to the family".

The father, 41, who was not implicated in this incident, was refused care of the children but argued they should be placed with foster carers who were "an appropriate cultural and religious match".

The judge dismissed evidence from a Muslim scholar who argued that continued placement would exacerbate the physical risk to the children by increasing the shame wrought on the family. He said that despite flaws in the care proceedings, placing the children with the non-Muslim family had given correct priority to the physical safety of the children.

The judge went further, however, stating that "the time has surely come to rethink the phrase 'honour killings'". He described it as a "wholly inappropriate oxymoron". He added: "In this case, the family may wish to reflect on the fact that it has lost five of its children: one by death, one by the legitimate flight from gender-based violence inflicted on his mother, and three to the care system."

The case comes as organisations involved in foster care continue to draw attention to the lack of minority ethnic placements available for children from diverse backgrounds.